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Topic: Gift registry for a housewarming? (Read 12453 times)

I had a housewarming when I bought my house because I was proud of it and wanted to show it off. It was only when the first eight or ten people showed up, each with a gift, that I realized that housewarming attendance = housewarming gift in my area.

I had issued invitations to quite a lot of people, including my next-door neighbors (who didn't show up), and I still cringe to think that my invitation may have come across as a gift grab.

I would never think of a housewarming invite as a gift grab. Even though you typically bring a gift, it's not a big gift. It's more the bottle of wine, set of dish towels thing. If you're grabby for that, boy, there's trouble.

I see a very big difference between an Amazon.com wish list and a registry.

A registry is connected to a particular event: traditionally a wedding, now also new (especially first) baby, which are events for which people traditionally needed equipment for a very different stage of life -- unlike other gift-giving occasions like graduations, bar/bat mitzvah, birthdays, Christmas, etc.

A wish list on a site like Amazon.com is just there all the time, whenever someone wants to know if there's something you've been longing for. It doesn't disappear after a set period of time like a registry usually does. If someone buys an item on it for you, it's still there, I believe, unlike a registry, which is managed by the store or site. If someone ever wants to buy you a gift, for whatever reason, they can see what you would like.

And, as magicdomino says, people do use them as shopping lists for themselves, too -- even though Amazon.com now does have separate lists for wish and shopping -- which I found out the hard way when I thought I had bought the perfect gift for a friend, because I bought it off her amazon.com wish list, only to have her say, "This is exactly the one I already have!" when she opened it (not very politely, eh? ) She had bought it for herself or perhaps received it as a gift from someone else and forgot to remove it from her list.

A wish list does not indicate that you are thinking that people will be buying you gifts for any particular occasion. A registry does.

So a "housewarming registry" suggests that you are expecting people will buy you substantial gifts for your new home. And although many people do buy housewarming gifts, they tend to be small items like plants or coasters, except perhaps from very close friends and family, who don't usually use a registry to know your needs and tastes -- they just ask you or surprise you.

A nice bottle of wine or some bread as a PP mentioned is always a nice thought but certainly gifts shouldn't be expected.

Perhaps it was time of life and the culture, but 30 years ago when I was in the Army it was very much a gift giving occasion. Office staff would often get together and give a larger gift. Generally we were 20 somethings with little household goods. We all took a great deal of pride in contributing to a new home. I remember the invitations I bought for my housewarming came pre-printed with lines for room colors. I would have been considered rude for not giving that info.

Now, when we had our last big move and hosted a housewarming we had more than enough stuff. I much preferred a bottle of wine--well, except for that pink stuff I had to give away.

I see a very big difference between an Amazon.com wish list and a registry.

A registry is connected to a particular event: traditionally a wedding, now also new (especially first) baby, which are events for which people traditionally needed equipment for a very different stage of life -- unlike other gift-giving occasions like graduations, bar/bat mitzvah, birthdays, Christmas, etc.

Ah, that explains it then. We don't use registries in Denmark - we only have wish lists.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

A wish list is a general list that you create to remind you of things you want - future purchases you want to make. It's like a shopping list of wants instead of needs. It has no ties to a particular event and is there year round. Should someone ask what you want for birthday/christmas, it's a good place to point them, but it doesn't carry the expectation of presents for any particular event. It's just there.

A registry is tied to a particular event. It usually has a time limit and implies that that event that a registry is created for is a gift-giving event (and, at least in my experience, is traditionally reserved for weddings, baby showers, and significant birthdays).

Well, you could do what one of my coworkers did - she sent out invitations to her housewarming party over a year after she moved in that included a bulleted list of all the stores she wanted gift cards from. Needless to say, I declined the honor of this invitation and the opportunity to purchase a gift card for her. This is the same coworker who when she was expecting her second child, handed everyone in the department a printout of a crib with the dollar amount written in that was due from each of us. She is a walking etiqette nightmare.

I thought of another big difference between a wedding registry and a wish list at a site like amazon.com: a registry is directed toward a specific group of people who are invited to an event: wedding or shower (baby or bridal).

A wish list isn't. It's just always there for anyone who wants to use it, including yourself as a "to-buy" list.